A Facebook application that allows users to publicly connect with third-party Web sites and share them with friends is raising privacy concerns, the Toronto Star reports. "It's what I and others call 'soft surveillance.' Marketers are building their social graphs based on...social networks, mapping connections between people," University of Ottawa Professor Ian Kerr told attendees at the Office of the Privacy Commissioner's "Understanding Online Tracking, Profiling and Targeting" conference on Thursday. Kerr suggested such applications take online tracking and profiling to a whole new level, the report states, based on users' social networks, not just personal preferences. As Jules Polonetsky, CIPP, of the U.S.-based Future of Privacy Forum put it, "if some of your friends are deadbeats, marketers may conclude you are a bad risk too."
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